Ardent Chicago Cubs fan loses fight with leukemia

Like her team, Niles' Edith Konya fought to the end.

Like her team, Niles' Edith Konya fought to the end.

January 29, 2009|By LOU MUMFORD Tribune Staff Writer

NILES -- A broken heart? No, Edith Konya didn't die of a broken heart. Her favorite team, the Chicago Cubs, had broken it any number of times, and Konya had always bounced back. Breast cancer, too, proved to be no match for Konya, who 31 years ago handled the disease as if it were nothing more than a speed bump. But last year while the Cubs, to Konya's delight, were piling up the best record in baseball, the 89-year-old Konya battled another form of cancer, one that attacked her blood. The leukemia took a toll and Konya couldn't hold it off. Not that she didn't try. "She fought like a son of gun," said her daughter, Susan Jenning, of South Bend. About 11 a.m. Tuesday, at the Lakeland HealthCare facility in Berrien Center, Konya's struggle drew to a close. As it turned out, she died peacefully in her sleep, Jenning said, just as she had hoped. "She got her wish," she said. It was about time she had a wish materialize. Ever since her retirement from the former Portofino Restaurant in Niles more than a quarter century ago, her wish was to have the Cubs win, and win often. A few times, they did, but it was never enough for the country's longest-suffering baseball franchise to capture a World Series. The string of futility is now at 101 years, and counting. In a Tribune story in October, Konya said she finally snapped after watching her Cubs win nary a game in their first-round playoff series with the Los Angeles Dodgers. "I sat here and cried. I'd never done that before. All of a sudden, I was sitting here, sobbing," she said. Jenning was well aware of her mom's fanaticism. If the Cubs happened to be playing a televised game, Konya could always be found glued to the TV in her apartment at Four Flags Plaza. On such occasions, Konya didn't allow interruptions. By anyone. "Sometimes I'd call and she'd say, 'I'm watching the Cubs.' She'd just hang up on me," Jenning said. "I thought, whatever." Lou Piniella's management of the team didn't always suit Konya either, nor could she have been pleased by the recent trade of her favorite player, Mark DeRosa. Still, she had planned to be on hand for the Cubs game on May 4, when they'll play the San Francisco Giants and when Konya was to celebrate her 90th birthday in style. Her son, John, a resident of the Grand Rapids area, had taken her to games at Wrigley Field before but the May 4, 2009, contest had been on Konya's radar for years. She even told her doctor about the pending trip. "I said I've got to stay alive through May, that I've got to live to be 90 because my son's going to take me to see the Cubs in a limo,'' she said. "He said, 'Why don't you try for 100?' I said, 'Let's make 90 first.' '' Maybe Konya will be there anyway. And if a long fly ball by a Cubs player should barely clear the wall to win the game, who can say for certain it didn't receive some help? Staff writer Lou Mumford: lmumford@sbtinfo.com (269) 687-7002